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Vimeo gives $10,000 to any exclusive distributed films
  • Vitaliy_KiselevVitaliy_Kiselev

    Vimeo offering film makers presenting a movie in the Toronto International Film Festival $10,000 to debut their work on the site before anywhere else.

    Those that accept the advance money will distribute their film on Vimeo for a period of 30 days — or however long it takes Vimeo to recoup its expenses (e.g. making $10,000 off that particular film). After that, Vimeo will split all future profits from the film 90/10 — with 90 percent of profits going to the film’s creator. And just like with others that set up a pay-per-view movie, the film’s creator wil be able to set the price of the film, enable which regions can watch it, and how long it will stay online.

    Via http://venturebeat.com/2013/09/03/vimeo-offering-indie-film-makers-10k-to-distribute-their-movies-via-vimeo-first/

  • 13 Replies sorted by
  • lolololo

    Interesting approach, but even for a no-budget film i think is a bit low, hopefully others webdistributors start to offer similar deals, increasing the offered money, i like the idea, i hope it works.

  • Vitaliy_KiselevVitaliy_Kiselev

    @lolo

    While it seems low, something tells me that most of the guys they see as target make almost zero anyway.

  • lolololo

    @Vitaliy_Kiselev ahhaha of course, but i was kind of thinking in a sustainable business model for the filmmakers

  • johnnymossvillejohnnymossville

    I like the idea and think we'll start seeing some great movies because of it.

  • Vitaliy_KiselevVitaliy_Kiselev

    but i was kind of thinking in a sustainable business model for the filmmakers

    $10K is not that they'll get. 10K is advance payment, as soon as Vimeo get it back you get all the extra money as usual.

  • DouglasHornDouglasHorn

    I did a write up about this with some context on my blog.

    I don’t see a lot of downside to this offer (for those fortunate enough to receive it). Launching a film digitally is likely to eliminate revenue from pay TV networks. This could potentially be worth a larger advance than the filmmakers would see from an online deal. So that is a very real drawback that filmmakers should consider before signing up for this deal. Some films may do better going that route. However, the sales from a TV deal will be a fixed price whereas filmmakers have the possibility of making more money through future sales on a digital rights deal with Vimeo’s 90/10 revenue split. This offer should not hinder foreign sales since it appears that Vimeo will still allow geo-blocking of foreign territories so as not to preclude future sales.

    http://douglashorn.com/wordpress/distribution/is-vimeos-10000-dollar-advance-for-digital-exclusives-a-good-deal-for-filmmakers/

  • matt_gh2matt_gh2

    @DouglasHorn Nice writeup - thanks. Good to see more episodes of Divergence available to watch. I'll definitely be checking those out.

  • robertGLrobertGL

    it's only exclusive to that film festival? I hope they expand it.. maybe have a screening process whereby they select which movies they'll front the money for. 10K would certainly pay for all the gear i've accumulated over the years - haha

  • DouglasHornDouglasHorn

    @matt_gh2 - Thanks. Yes, we now have 11 episodes online. Thanks for watching!

  • DouglasHornDouglasHorn

    @robertGL - At the moment it's just for TIFF premieres. I doubt that this will ever be a blanket offer from Vimeo. They want the prestige and curation of films associated with these festivals. However, I expect them to bring in more festivals in the near future. They started this party as SXSW, now it's at TIFF and I expect Sundance will be next. After that it'll be interesting to see how deep they'll go. Will they stop at these prestige fests or partner with others as well?

  • robertGLrobertGL

    meh - if I ever pull off a finished film I will be very loathe to do the festival circuit. I guess this vimeo offer is worth it for us no-budgeters, given the payoff and lack of aggregator bullsh/t. The distribution game is so rigged

  • bmorgan83bmorgan83

    Take that $10k, use it for marketing and advertising... then throw up a paywall on your film. If you're smart with the money and make the right advertising investments, AND have a film that people may be interested in watching, you may just come out ahead.

  • robertGLrobertGL

    @bmorgan83 yeah - but vimeo has never been my go-to movie or video destination. It has terrible navigation and I've yet to understand where their revenue comes from. Due to the terms of the 10k bounty, for most of us it will continue to be no different from youtube - a trailer park

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